In a grievance-filled whirled, there is often attention brought to rights violations, particularly when it is one’s own rights that are violated. Of course, rights are meaningless without responsibilities to secure those rights. This is where the chasm in securing such rights emerges: devoting prodigious energy on securing one’s own rights without a commensurate effort on securing the rights of others and all. I am a huge fan of human rights and consider developing a culture of responsibilities to secure those rights for all is a foundation for all of my social action. I view the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the best cross-cultural and secular expression of rights and their commensurate responsibilities. If we do not strike a fair balance of securing rights for ourselves AND others, then we will undercut our own ability, and moral authority, to secure rights for ourselves. This poem reflects on this reality of humanity failing to serve up the responsibilities required to secure rights for all resulting in an insecure world that we de-serve.
What is De-served?
In the heart
Of life
There are rights
And responsibilities
As well
Fore awe
That can ever be yearned
In the mine
Over yours
There is a whirled
Of consequences
And that what should happen to
Comeuppance
With respect too
Human rights
There are
Responsibilities too
Due the same
As well
Such potable virtues
When it comes down
To human wrongs
As far as you will
Weather getting even
Or grieving be foul
Karma runs over
Our three-legged dogmas
And what due
We get
What we serve
Or de-serve
